Never Say Die!

Never Say Die! finds BLACK SABBATH stepping beyond their usual world of monolithic riffs and oppressive weight. Pop, funk and jazz-leaning colors enter the picture, making this an unusually varied chapter in the group’s catalogue. The buoyant title track is strikingly light on its feet, while “Johnny Blade” restores Tony Iommi’s unsettling guitar presence and “Junior’s Eyes” slowly expands a mood of melancholy across its longer running time. Rather than maintaining one uniform darkness, the album lets each track claim a distinct character, turning the band’s sense of uncertainty into part of the music itself. The keyboards and floating atmosphere of “Air Dance,” along with the brass-led turn of “Breakout,” move well outside a conventional heavy-metal template. Yet when Geezer Butler’s bass, Bill Ward’s flexible rhythm work and Ozzy Osbourne’s unmistakable voice come together, the music remains unmistakably Sabbath. The record is best approached not as a replica of the group’s earlier landmarks, but as a document of four musicians searching for a different exit. Its tension between heaviness and lightness, direct attack and detour, gives Never Say Die! an aftertaste unlike any other album from the original era.